"Eat me."
"Ask your wife to," East sings, dropping into the seat between us, smelling like motor oil and bad decisions. The brunette regular at the bar is playing with her straw like it's a dick, and he's grinning at her like she's already won the lottery.
I don't bother hiding my eye roll. "Don't you have paperwork to fake or something?"
"Already did." He winks at the girl, then turns back. "We could all use a morale boost. Which is why I'm saying… vice"—he looks at me, smirk sharpening when my jaw ticks—"go visit your wife. Find an empty room. Quickie. Boom. Whole mood fixed."
I keep my face blank. Years of practice.
Inside, though, I picture an empty room. Sloane with her scrubs pushed up around her hips. My hand over her mouth while she tries not to be loud.
My cock twitches against my zipper.
"Not all of us can abandon fiscal responsibility every time our dick twitches," I say dryly.
"Please. You're halfway to a permanent hard-on anytime she breathes in your direction. Don't pretend you're above it."
He's not wrong.
I think about her in that fading navy, hair scraped back, eyes tired but fierce. The way she looks at me when I show up in her break room, coffee in one hand, my other already on her waist. Her eyes drop to my mouth before she catches herself, and the tired drains out of her face for a second.
Every time she answers the phone with "Hi, husband," I feel my grip on the day slip a little.
"Seriously though," East says, glancing toward the bar, then back. "You're extra murdery today. Go see her."
"That your clinical assessment, Dr. Shaw?"
He opens his mouth, probably some joke about bedside manner and blow jobs, but Nash cuts in.
"You're pissed about Chuck. And you're pissed she's working after seeing Candace like that and pretending she's fine."
He says it like he's reading off a menu.
I stare at him. "You become a therapist when I wasn't looking?"
"Unfortunately. Occupational hazard."
There's a tightness around his eyes today, too. Same as last night when he was pacing the edge of the lot, phone lighting up every ten minutes, jaw set.
"You hitting the fight tonight?" he asks, steering away from my shit.
"Yeah. You?"
His gaze flicks away, just for a second. "Thinking about it."
East snorts. "Translation: ninety-nine percent chance he's going to see her again."
"She's bad news," I say quietly.
Nash's jaw works. "Yeah." He sounds tired. The kind of tired that comes from carrying something he can't set down, and whatever this woman is to him, it sounds less like want and more like a debt he can't pay off. "So am I," he adds, and finishes his beer like the conversation's over.
Before I can push, my phone buzzes. Sloane. All the air in my lungs eases at once.
Sloane: Halfway through hell. How's your day, vice president of chaos?
My mouth pulls into a grin before I can stop it.
Me: Grumpy. Wife abandoned me for twelve hours. Might file a formal complaint.